Obama's "Sudan Strategy"

Upon reading this statement by President Obama I was immediately reminded of a talk that I had with my father a couple of years ago regarding the U.S. occupation in Iraq. Just to set the background a bit: My father is a pretty hard core right-wing conservative and a proud Christian. These are all things that I have to factor in when having any political or philosophical discussion with him, and this day was no different. I, being the synnical  twenty-something, and he being the seasoned veteran set the stage for our differences.

I kept rainling on about how we had no business being over there under the circumstances which we made our invasion. I cited the absence of any WMD's and how we only went after Iraq because Saddam was an easy target following the attacks of 9/11 and how we were only primarily interested in an area of the globe which would help yeild control over large oil reserves. I can't say that the reasoning behind my opinion at the time would have been considered free of fallacies, yet I felt that our occupation in Iraq was not for reasons stated by our government in the media (and I still hold to that to a degree today). But I remember my father going on about how much better off the people in Iraq were since Saddam was taken out of power and how the U.S. had a responsibility to step up and help a nation that was in such dissarray. I could kinda understand where he was coming from, and I can say that I do feel that the people of Iraq may very well be better off not being ruled by their former dictator, but I was and am still sceptical of the motivation of our invasion.

Anyway, I could not help but think of other areas of the world where there are situations where citizens of countries are subjected to genocide and terrible living situations, where the only hope seems to be the intervention of a more powerful nation or alliance of nations. Why were we not running to help those people?  If it were all about helping out those who are in trouble; being the shining example among the world's leading nations, would we not seek to do something about, oh...I don't know...maybe the genocide in Darfur?

Well, today as I read President Obama's release regarding his Sudan Strategy I was reminded of my mindset of a few years back. I began to think to myself that Obama be the right person to be in place to help these people...and then I read further. This statement is weak at best. I typically lean to the left on a lot of issues and did not expect to end up thinking the way that I did by the end of his statement. It sounds like he is only hinting at the issues. I have to agree with a couple of people who posted comments to the report on (I can't believe that I am gonna say this) Foxnews.com, and I pretty much have to agree that the 'strategy' does not seem to involve anything which is not presently in place regarding our action towards the circumstances in this region. I found myself saying a couple of duh's throughout my reading of this statement, and to be honest I feel that we are really no closer to doing any real good for these people. Am I missing something here? I sure hope so...